Why Martin Scorsese rewrote Killers of the Flower Moon: I realised I was making...

Time magazine's latest cover features none other than legendary director Martin Scorsese, shedding light on the fascinating evolution of his forthcoming film, Killers of the Flower Moon. This cinematic endeavour, inspired by David Grann's 2017 non-fiction book, chronicles the FBI's investigation into a series of chilling murders within the Osage Nation during the tumultuous 1920s. However, what makes this tale particularly compelling is not just its riveting historical context but also the substantial rewrite undertaken by Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth.

Initially, Scorsese and Roth had conceived of their film adaptation with a decidedly external perspective. The story centred on the white characters, and Leonardo DiCaprio was set to play the lead as the head FBI investigator, Tom White.

Reflecting on this initial approach, Scorsese told Time, "After a certain point, I realised I was making a movie about all the white guys. Meaning I was taking the approach from the outside in, which concerned me."

In response to this concern, Scorsese and Roth made a bold decision — they decided to overhaul the entire script. This transformative shift in perspective gave birth to an entirely new film. In this revised version, DiCaprio took on the role of Ernest Burkhart, a morally ambiguous World War I veteran caught up in his uncle's nefarious plot to exploit the wealth of the Osage Nation. The revamped script placed the spotlight on Ernest and his marriage to an Osage woman named Mollie, played by Lily Gladstone. Their relationship becomes increasingly complex amid the backdrop of the murders and the FBI's arrival to investigate. Jesse Plemons, who had originally been cast as Tom White, now assumed a supporting role.

Lily Gladstone, in an interaction with Interview magazine, shared her experience auditioning for the film. "Before the rewrites, I had three pages of some pretty mouthy dialogue," Gladstone recounted. "But I was struggling so much with the scenes that when COVID shut everything down and the project went quiet for a minute, I assumed that I’d blown the audition. About a year later, I got a request to Zoom with Martin Scorsese. And then I got new sides sent to me that had beats. Suddenly it was a scene that had minimal dialogue…And I was like, ‘Oh man, I can plug a character in here now. This is amazing.Because I’d heard that the rewrites completely did a 180. Leo was supposed to be playing Tom White, Jesse Plemons’s character."

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